Roadways

Florida Department of Transportation awards design-build contract to Atkins and Prince Contracting for I-75 widening project in Pasco County, Fla.

Tampa, FL — The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District Seven has awarded Atkins a design-build (D-B) contract to widen Interstate 75 (I-75) in Pasco County, Florida from north of County Road 54 to north of State Road 52. The multi-million-dollar project also calls for the reconstruction of the SR 52/I-75 interchange and for improvements to SR 52.

Atkins’ partner in the project is Prince Contracting, LLC. Atkins will serve as prime project designer and will provide a broad range of engineering and design services related to roadways, structures, landscaping, drainage, environmental permitting, public involvement, surveying, and intelligent traffic systems.

The project, which is expected to increase traffic flow, accommodate area growth, and improve safety, involves:

Transforming 1.2 miles of SR 52 (a two-lane, rural road) into a six-lane, curb-and-gutter urban roadway on both the east and west sides of I-75.

All released-for-construction (RFC) plans are expected to be complete by the summer of 2014; all project-related structures are expected to be complete by the fall of 2016.

Atkins senior project manager Joe Hitterman, PE, said, “We have significant knowledge and experience within the I-75 corridor. We were able to partner with Prince Contracting to reduce project costs and address all of the requirements in the RFP. In addition, Prince played a major role by aggressively bidding on the job.

Hitterman said the strength of the team and the cost-saving ideas they presented were also key factors in the contract award. “We proposed using an Acrow temporary bridge at the SR 52 interchange to accelerate bridge construction and avoid phased construction,” he noted.

For the past 20 years Atkins has collaborated with FDOT District Seven, which enabled the company to earn high marks on its technical proposal for the I-75 widening project. Most recently, Atkins helped design the segmental concrete bridge structures for the newly opened I-4/Lee Roy Selmon Expressway Connector in Tampa, Florida—a project that links two major east-west transportation corridors, improves traffic flow, and removes heavy truck traffic from local roads by providing an exclusive truck lane for direct access to the Port of Tampa.